Safe Ride: Hospitality industry sponsors rides home from bars

By Molly Miron

“One sub-zero winter night, Bill Smith recalled, he was waiting in his limousine outside a downtown bar when four young women came out. The women weren’t dressed for the cold, and they needed a ride back to Bemidji State University.”
“Smith said they offered him $50 for a lift, but he had to decline because he was contracted to the party inside the bar. Nevertheless, he worried about the women walking home in the freezing night.”

“Sometime later, Smith was lunching at Keg N Cork and brought up the need for rides to the owner Mitch Rautio. Rautio immediately agreed. The result in January 2009 was a meeting with Shelly Baker of Big North Distributing, Karl Jacobson of Slim’s Bar & Grill, Rautio and other members of the hospitality industry to organize Safe Ride. At about the same time, bar owners and Big North Distributing incorporated as the nonprofit Beltrami Area Beverage Association (BaBa) for mutual support of the project. ...”

Full text article available at: http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/event/article/id/100020473/